Wikipedia:Escalating alphabeticals

The responding acronym:

Often a condition of escalating alphabeticals will be initiated or worsened by a third participant, who instead of addressing the original point raised, invokes a simplistic policy response. This can have the effect of sidetracking a discussion into policy interpretations rather than the original issue raised.

Another strategy often used in EA is to repeatedly use the entire alphabet, i.e. make an extremely lengthy post which discusses a wide variety of issues, some of them almost, or completely, unrelated.

Successful resolution requires unwinding all the forked arguments. An alternative is for an editor to declare a STACK_OVERFLOW in order to return to the original argument raised.

A typical EA sequence might look something like this:
(#1) Editor A: I don't understand why you have reverted my sourced edit to article Q?
(#2) Editor B: Because your edits violate NPOV and they are ridiculous.
(#3) Editor A: Your response violates CIV and it is ridiculous of you to suggest that.
(#4) Editor C: Editor A, you should AGF that Editor B is trying to resolve this.
(#6) Editor A: Editor C, why should I AGF when Editor B won't AAGF?
(#8) Editor C: Editor A, you should AHI.
(#9) Editor D: Editor C is a TROLL.

(#5) Editor B: Editor A, I didn't violate CIV, I called your 'edits' ridiculous, not you. You've violated NPA.by calling me ridculous.
(#7) Editor A: Editor B, you did so violate CIV, you say my edits using RS are ridiculous, that is a PA.
(#10) Editor C: You should use the talk page.
(#11) Editor A: We are on the talk page.
(#12) Editor D: If you have a dispute, file an RFC.

...
Wikipedia